1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of body harnesses in general and in particular to a full-body harness that is built into an article of camouflage clothing.
2. Description of Related Art
As can be seen by reference to the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,738,046; 5,136,724; 5,289,590; 5,450,627; 5,806,095; the prior art is replete with both upper body harnesses built into jackets and lower body harnesses built into pants for the purpose of suspending the wearer at elevated locations.
While all of the aforementioned prior art constructions are more than adequate for the basic purpose and function for which they have been specifically designed, they are uniformly deficient with respect to their failure to provide a simple, efficient, and practical full-body harness that can be built into an article of camouflage clothing or work clothing.
As virtually all hunters that use elevated tree stands and platforms are all too well aware, the leading cause of death and serious injury to hunters is not being shot by other hunters but rather falling out of an elevated portable or permanent tree stand or the like.
In addition, current research has indicated that while both upper torso and lower torso harnesses will prevent a hunter from dropping from a great height, they are also fraught with their own unique problems.
For instance, an upper torso harness will maintain the hunter in an upright position; however, in the absence of lower torso support, the upper body harness will compress the hunters diaphragm rendering the hunter unconscious in a relatively short period of time.
On the other hand, while the lower torso harness will not directly compress the user's diaphragm, the hunter will be suspended from the tree in an upside down position that is not only extremely difficult for the hunter to regain an upright position from; but, which also forces all of the hunters blood towards their head which will ultimately render the hunter unconscious.
Furthermore, while most hunters acknowledge that the full-body harness is by far the safest and most secure system for preventing dire consequences from arising due to a fall from a tree stand, this system also has some drawbacks that up until the present time have retarded the widespread acceptance of the full-body harness by many hunters.
To begin with, virtually all full-body harnesses are designed to be worn on the outside of the hunter's outerwear which exposes a large amount of harness strap surface to be potentially exposed to snagging on brush, branches, cut tree limbs, tree steps and/or equipment. However, by far the greatest cause for resistance on the hunter's part is the fact that there are so many loops and straps involved in the full-body harness that have a tendency to become twisted and entangled with one another that the hunter does not want to be bothered untangling the looped straps each time that they don the device; and, this situation is further exacerbated during morning hunts when the hunter is attempting to put on the full-body harness wither in the dark or with the aid of a flashlight or vehicle headlights.
As a consequence of the foregoing situation, there has existed a longstanding need among hunters for a new and improved full-body harness that is built into a hunter's camouflaged outerwear; and, the provision of such an arrangement is the stated objective of the present invention.